Tom's Record

Tom has never hesitated to take on a fight. He’s stood up for our progressive values his entire career, from his time on the Montgomery County Council to his years leading the U.S. Department of Labor. And as DNC Chair, Tom will continue to get things done. He'll make the DNC an all-day, every-day, year-round organization to support our state parties, reach out to voters in every zip code and grow from the grassroots up.

Montgomery County

In 2002, Tom ran for a seat on the Montgomery County Council and won, becoming the first Latino elected to the Council and later served as its President.

Tom led an initiative to let Montgomery County residents buy cheaper prescription drugs.

Years before the housing crisis, Tom introduced and passed a bill to combat predatory lending and housing discrimination, a bill the Bush administration opposed.

Tom fought the immigrant “brain waste,” helping consolidate adult education and workforce development under Maryland’s Department of Labor to support programs focused on improving the language skills of immigrant professionals.

And Tom co-chaired Maryland’s Homeownership Preservation Task Force in 2007, calling for tougher mortgage laws, more outreach and emergency funds for families having a hard time keeping their homes.

CASA de Maryland

As Board President of Casa de Maryland, Tom grew the group, expanding it to an immigrationadvocacy organization.

Tom helped Casa improve the lives of immigrants by establishing services for day laborers and vocational training at community colleges.

Civil Rights

As a career attorney in the Justice Department, Tom prosecuted a gang of white supremacists in Texas who went on a shooting spree, trying to start a race war.

And Tom worked with Senator Kennedy to pass the Church Arson Prevention Act making destroying religious property because of race, color or ethnicity easier to prosecute as a federal crime.

While running the Office of Civil Rights at Health and Human Services, Tom worked to end racial and ethnic disparities in health care, including pursuing a case against a hospital segregating their maternity ward by race.

With Tom at the helm, the Civil Rights Division stood upagainst religious discrimination.

And Tom’s first congressional testimony after becoming Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights was supporting the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which outlawed discrimination in hiring on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

Tom expanded the overtime rule, guaranteeing workers earning less than $47,476 had the right to be paid for their additional work.

He aggressively combatedworker misclassification, the unfair practice of classifying employees as independent contractors to cut costs and deprive them of wages and benefits. In 2016 alone, Labor collected $266 million in back pay owed to workers.

He raised the minimum wage and extended overtime protections for home health care workers, impacting nearly 2 million workers.

And Tom stood up for workers, issuing a rulerequiring companies to disclose how much they spend combating union organizing efforts.

Tom played a key role in ensuring companies with federal contracts pay their contract workers a minimum wage and provide paid sick leave.

With Tom’s leadership, the Labor Department issued a conflict of interest rule forcing retirement advisors to put their clients’ best interest ahead of their own, potentially saving Americans billions of dollars per year.